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Stonehenge once the site of sun worshipping

Two pits discovered at Stonehenge could indicate that the site was used as a place of sun worship before the stones were erected more than 5,000 years ago, according to a team of archaeologists working as part of the Stonehenge Hidden Landscapes Project. The pits, which are positioned on celestial alignment, are thought to have once contained stones, posts or fires to mark the rising and setting of the sun, and may have formed part of a processional route for ancient rituals celebrating the sun travelling across the sky at the midsummer solstice.

Four independent historians investigating the German Intelligence Service’s (BND) old links with the Nazis have discovered that the files of 250 BND employees who were in the Nazi SS or Gestapo were destroyed in 2007. The BND have said that the destroyed files make up two per cent of the archive currently under investigation and claim the files were not deemed to be worth keeping. It is estimated that one in 10 BND recruits had previously served in Hitler's SS. The historians involved have not alleged a deliberate cover-up but have urged the BND not to destroy any more files.

Combined visitor rates to government-sponsored museums have more than doubled over the past decade, according to figures. The Labour government abolished admission fees to England's national museums in December 2011 – 18 million people visited the 13 attractions in 2010–11, compared with seven million in 2000–01. The total visitor numbers to Department for Culture, Media and Sport-sponsored museums for 2010–11 was 43.8m, with the National Maritime Museum reporting visitor increases of 200 per cent, the Natural History Museum increases of nearly 190 per cent and the Victoria & Albert Museum increases of around 180 per cent.

Svetlana Alliluyeva, the only daughter of Soviet dictator Josef Stalin, has died at the age of 85. Alliluyeva, also known as Lana Peters, defected from the Soviet Union in 1967, a move motivated by the Soviet authorities' poor treatment of an Indian communist whom she had a relationship with. Peters later denounced communism and her father, whom she referred to as “a moral and spiritual monster”.

Researchers claim they have ‘recreated’ a Stradivarius violin using X-ray scanners, and then used the data to build "nearly exact copies". The 307-year-old instrument, known as ‘Betts’, was borrowed from the US Library of Congress and more than 1,000 CAT scan images of the violin were taken. The scans allowed the team to determine the density of the woods that made up the Stradivarius and the data was then used to carve the replica's back and front plates, neck and the scroll carving at the neck’s end. Radiologist Steven Sirr first had the idea of using a CAT scanner to take images of violins in 1988 and has been scanning musical instruments ever since.

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